Shrewsbury Street residents and business owners voiced concerns Thursday night about UMass Memorial Health Care’s plans to relocate its outpatient psychiatric services to a three-story brick building it owns at 328 Shrewsbury St.

Their concerns centered on the lack of parking for the building, the increase in traffic the clinic will generate, security issues associated with the facility and where employees and patients will be allowed to smoke.Because UMass Memorial is a smoke-free facility, residents and business owners fear that smokers will gravitate closer to their properties.

“Our neighborhood should not become UMass’ ashtray,” said Gary J. Vecchio, president of the neighborhood group.

Meanwhile, UMass Memorial officials pledged to work with residents to ensure that the clinic fits in with the neighborhood and is not disruptive.

“We recognize there will be a change to the neighborhood,” said Cheryl Lapriore, senior vice president, chief of staff and chief marketing officer for UMass Memorial Health Care. “Our job is to make sure there are no negative impacts to residents and businesses. We don’t anticipate any problems, but if any should arise we will solve them very quickly.”

UMass Memorial has been providing outpatient psychiatric services for more than 15 years at a building near the Beechwood Inn.

Ms, Lapriore said UMass Memorial wants to relocate those services to a building it owns on Shrewsbury Street because of the cost involved in renting the property from the Beechwood.

While the current outpatient facility is in a fairly isolated area, the new clinic, which is expected to open some time between May and July, is in the heart of a commercial and residential area.

While the clinic will be providing various outpatient psychiatric services, it will not offer methadone treatments or programs for sex offenders, and medication will not be distributed in the building.

About 140-150 clients are expected to be served at the Shrewsbury Street clinic each weekday. Also, about 100 employees will be working there, though no more than 30 are expected to be there at any one time.

During the course of the year, the clinic is expected to generate about 40,000 visits with about 4,000 unique adult patients. Residents fear those kind of numbers will lead to greater traffic congestion on Shrewsbury Street.

While the current clinic near the Beechwood has 83 parking spaces, the building on Shrewsbury Street has about 60 off-street spaces.

Ms. Lapriore said UMass Memorial is negotiating with the Bancroft School of Message, located across the street, to rent an additional 5-10 parking spaces.

She added that if parking becomes a problems, UMass would consider providing a shuttle transportation service for staff employees so they would not taking up parking spaces at the clinic site.

To address security concerns, Ms. Lapriore said UMass Memorial police will have a presence at the new site. She said police will be on site a minimum of three times a day during the time the clinic is in operation to perform security checks.

UMass Memorial will also post clear signage indicating that the clinic is smoke free and is in a residential area and, as a result, staff and patients will be asked to leave the residential area if they are to smoke.

Ms. Lapriore also acknowledged that UMass Memorial made a mistake by going forward with the renovation project before first discussing its plans with the neighborhood group.